Articles

More US companies may turn towards Regulation S securities offerings as a way of raising money due to the recent plunge of American stock markets, according to investment manager John McNiff.Mr McNiff, who runs Bermuda-based Offshore Investment Fund Ltd (OIFL), said US firms would find it increasingly difficult to raise money through public offerings in the current climate of market uncertainty.

A drowned scuba diver's family has taken steps to stop dive instructor Michael Heslop from disposing of any funds he may receive from the sale of his business.Mr Heslop has recently been trying to sell his dive boat operation, Fantasea Diving.

The UK insurance daily newspaper Lloyd's List has reiterated its claim that the Department of Trade & Industry is concerned about the quality of Bermuda's reinsurance market - despite an angry letter from the Bermuda Ministry of Finance.

The trial of Bermuda company boss Tony Habib, which was originally due to have been held on March 21, has been postponed because of additional time required by US investigators to gather information locally.

Members of two ill-fated Gooda Walker insurance syndicates have filed a lawsuit at Bermuda Supreme Court.

The Department of Trade & Industry's warning to UK insurers about taking out reinsurance in Bermuda is a direct result of the collapse of Bermuda Fire & Marine, Lloyd's List newspaper has reported.

A trial date for Bermuda company boss Tony Habib, who is accused of a multi-million dollar fraud, has been set for March 21 in the Federal Court southern district of New York.

Mystery surrounds the firing of investment boss Angus C McKay from Bermuda Overseas Investment Company.

An application has been made to wind up Bermuda-based Windsor Investments, which is majority owned by beleaguered American businessmen Gilbert Beinhocker and Gregory Plunkett.Channel Islands-based Maydown Consultants, which filed the winding-up petition at Bermuda Supreme Court on Wednesday, claims the investment company owes it $375,000.

Bermuda-based investors fighting to regain $750,000 which was allegedly stripped from their firm by American Gilbert Beinhocker may get most of their money back.The receiver of their investment firm, EPA Inc, has ordered the return of $500,000 in Promissory Notes that were taken out of the firm by Dr Beinhocker.Dr Beinhocker, who ran EPA for its investors, gave two notes - worth a total of $207,692 - to law firms Hale & Dorr, of Boston, and Richards, Layton & Finger, of Delaware, as payment for legal bills.

Controversial businessman Graham Ferguson Lacey, whose failed ventures are reported to have cost investors more than $400 million, is relaxing his business ties with Bermuda.An application has been made to move the domicile of the publicly-quoted Van Diemen's Company Ltd. from Bermuda to Luxembourg.

Potential losses from breast implant litigation in the United States should not cause undue problems for Bermuda-based excess liability carriers ACE and XL, both companies said this week.

Potential losses from breast implant litigation in the United States should not cause undue problems for Bermuda-based excess liability carriers ACE and XL, both companies said this week.

US federal prosecutors investigating Bermuda company boss Tony Habib have taken steps to depose local accountant Ray Medeiros and lawyer Ken Robinson.

The likelihood of foreign exchange controls being lifted in their entirety in the Budget on February 14 is considered to be virtually non-existent by Bermuda's financial community. While a complete overhaul of Bermuda's financial regulations may have been the Government's intention as recently as a few months ago, the issue has been turned on its head by talk of independence, according to businessmen.

Bermuda-based oil magnate John Deuss, 51, has lived a life that is remarkable even among the rich and famous. Since his first car dealership went bust in the 1960s, he has outwitted the Soviets, broken an oil embargo in South Africa, had his home fire-bombed by anti-apartheid protesters and helped clinch the world's largest oil deal. In the process, this self-made Dutchman has made billions of dollars. DAVID MARCHANT takes a look at his extraordinary career and asks: 'John Deuss - Hero or Villain?'

Members of the plush 69-unit St. George's Club timeshare complex have signed a preliminary agreement to buy the business for approximately $5 million.A party from the Members Advisory Council will visit Bermuda later this month to inspect the Club's books and meet with Government, which owns the land.

The saying ‘there's one born every minute' has never been more appropriate than when applied to the plethora of investors who have lost their shirts gambling on companies that prospect for diamonds and gold in ‘them thar hills' of British Columbia, Canada. DAVID MARCHANT takes a look at an industry that has attracted substantial investment from Bermuda residents and scrutinizes the performance of the notorious Vancouver Stock Exchange, which helps firms raise money and which was described in Forbes magazine in 1989 as ‘The Scam Capital of the World'.

Bermuda police are investigating an allegation that hundreds of thousands of dollars have gone missing from a local property development company.The cash has allegedly disappeared from The Summit Development Ltd, which built ten homes in Cut Road, St. George's, during the late 1980s.

Ernst & Young, the provisional liquidators of Bermuda Fire & Marine Insurance, have been granted an extra three months by Bermuda Supreme Court to compile information about the company's financial health and are now expected to produce their findings on March 10.

To all intents and purposes, Bermuda does not have any meaningful foreign currency exchange controls as far as people's ordinary spending habits are concerned, although it is a different story for capital investment.

A police file on Arnold Todd and others allegedly involved in a multi-million dollar fraud ring will be sent to the Attorney-General's chambers early next month.But criminal charges are unlikely to be brought for several months, if they are brought at all, Acting Assistant Police Commissioner Superintendent Wayne Perinchief said last night.

Partner Reinsurance Company, the $1 billion property catastrophe reinsurer which opened for business last month, has firmly defended its controversial policy of offering capacity direct to reinsurance buyers.Unlike other markets on the island, Partner Re prefers not to conduct business through placing brokers — a philosophy which has not endeared it to the reinsurance intermediaries.

Partner Reinsurance Company, the $1 billion property catastrophe reinsurer which opened for business last month, has firmly defended its policy of offering capacity direct to reinsurance buyers.Partner Re president and chief executive officer Herbert Haag said this week that Swiss Re, one of Partner Re's founding shareholders and the supplier of essential underwriting services to the catastrophe company, had already established a "clear tradition" of writing direct.

International Advisory Services, Bermuda's largest independent insurance management company, says it is working on putting together a scheme of arrangement for Bristol Reinsurance Ltd, the property and marine commercial reinsurer it has managed since October 1991.

Sphere Drake Holdings is injecting $100 million into its lightly-capitalised Bermuda subsidiary to enable it to write up to $130 million of net premiums over the next 12 months.The new capital is coming from the group's recently-concluded initial public offering which raised $136.7 million.

An overview of Bermuda, 1993.

Focus Insurance chief Mark Hardy has publicly apologized to the Supreme Court for disobeying its orders freezing assets he held here and overseas. The verbal apology, which Mr Hardy asked the court to view in light of "horrendous litigation over the last three years", was delivered to the Chief Justice of Bermuda during the course of a two-hour open hearing. Mr Hardy, now an adjudged bankrupt who described himself as "a strong believer in the rule of law", told the court he had been through hell during the last few months because he had been litigating in person.

Bermuda Fire and Marine Insurance chairman Charles Collis says responsibility for regulatory compliance by the company's UK subsidiary was the job of H S Weavers.

Bermuda Fire & Marine chairman Charles Collis said yesterday that the company has between $50 million and $60 million in reserves and was put into liquidation to avoid "a feeding frenzy" by its creditors.

Provisional liquidators have been appointed to investigate the financial position of Bermuda Fire and Marine Insurance Company Ltd after the company filed for a voluntary winding up order on November 2.

Bankrupt businessman Mark Hardy, the former head of the insolvent Focus Insurance group, is returning to Bermuda - to personally apologize to the Supreme Court for ignoring its orders.The apology will be offered in compliance with a ruling by Britain's Privy Council, the highest court of appeal for litigants in UK protected territories, that Mr Hardy first "purge" his standing with the Bermuda court before the Privy Council hears his appeal.

Promoters behind the Bermuda Financial Centre said this week that they are seeking Bermudian investors as much as Bermuda dollar investments for their proposed $131 million hotel, conference and office complex.

Bermudians will soon be invited to buy in to the international business industry — by purchasing shares in a new company planning to replace the Bermudiana Hotel with a posh, five-star business hotel and office complex. The project, which includes a big convention and leisure centre, could be completed in 1996 and is expected to inject millions of dollars into the economy.

Former Focus Insurance director David Thirkill is planning to raise $150 million to start a new financial or finite risk insurance company on the island.The company, which has not yet been incorporated, is to be called Stellar Insurance — a name that Mr Thirkill said had already been reserved.

Founding investors in a planned $131 million hotel proposed to take the place of the Bermudiana have been told that the full cost of the project could be met with funds from overseas. Gordon Capital Corporation, the Canadian investment banking firm advising on the financing of the project, has said the money can be raised from its clients off the island.

A Small group of Bermudian investors and businessmen plans to raise over $130 million to turn the Bermudiana Hotel into a five-star hotel and convention centre, with offices and a recreation complex. The group has not been named but is known to include architect Fraser Butterworth. Two other well-known Bermudians with extensive hotel experience are among the founding sponsors.

Businessman Mark Hardy, the former chairman of insolvent Focus Insurance, was today adjudged bankrupt by an English court.

Focus Insurance chief Mark Hardy was yesterday adjudged bankrupt by an English court.However Mr Hardy, who has long claimed he would not receive justice until a suit for negligence started against him in Bermuda by Focus liquidators was brought before an English judge, warned last night that his legal battle was "far from over".

Bermuda Supreme Court Chief Justice Sir James Astwood has refused to strike out a civil action started last summer by the liquidators of Focus Insurance against its former directors and officers.He has ruled that the action contains allegations which, if proved at trial, could show that the directors deliberately disregarded their legal duty to Focus and failed to exercise the care, diligence and skill that a reasonably prudent person would exercise in comparable circumstances.

Financial Services Insurance, the Bermuda-based company whose chief executive was arrested on fraud charges last month, is to be placed in liquidation.

Focus Insurance chief Mark Hardy has begun a legal action in the UK seeking to set aside a $19.7 million summary judgement handed down against him in the Bermuda Supreme Court.

The run off of Walton Insurance Ltd, a Bermuda-based carrier formerly owned by Phillips Petroleum, is to be transferred to the UK in a cost-cutting move that will lead to the loss of 11 jobs.Announcing the relocation, president Tim Spafford said that a further six jobs will also be axed with the closing of an affiliated Bermuda company, Insurance and Reinsurance Services Ltd — a company that specialised in claims audit services.

The Ministry of Finance has frozen the activities of a Bermuda-based insurance company after its chief executive and founder was arrested in New York on fraud charges.Alleged trickster Tony Habib, who heads Financial Services Insurance Ltd, is accused of conning auditors and insurance authorities here and in the US into believing that his company had over $50 million in assets. In reality, its finances are said to be "in serious jeopardy".

A Bermuda-based insurance company's president and his wife are thought to have gone into hiding after a Federal court in Dallas last week found them guilty of fraud.Neill and Florence Portermain were also found to have taken money from the company under false pretences and were ordered to pay a Bermudian liquidator $17.6 million in damages and interest.

Creditors of insolvent Mentor Insurance have given near unanimous support to a proposed "scheme of arrangement" under which the bulk of the company's $175 million of remaining assets are to be distributed by the end of 1994. Of 277 creditors represented at a brief special meeting here on Tuesday, all but one voted for the scheme. The 276 supporting creditors represented claims against the company to the value of $310 million.

Tempting as it is to believe that international banking competition is next to impossible on a tiny island served by just three licensed banks, the belief could not be further from the truth.Bermuda's domestic banks compete for international business not only among themselves, but, increasingly, against powerful overseas financial institutions, some of which access the Bermuda market through local corporate vehicles that do not require banking licences.

Insurance companies seldom come to Bermuda for banking services alone.But they'd be unlikely to stay without them. How else would the 1,324 insurance and reinsurance corporations domiciled here manage the billions of dollars of premiums ($15.41 billion gross and $11.81 billion net at the last count) they write every year?Yet while an efficient banking system has clearly been helpful to the Bermuda insurance industry, it is no less true that the specialised demands of Bermuda's insurers have served to work wonders for the financial systems of Britain's oldest colony.

Belvedere Insurance says it will fight a legal action begun against its parent Caliban Holdings this week.

The Privy Council, the highest court of appeal for litigants in British colonies, is to be asked to rule on the nature and standard of skill, care and expertise which the law requires of directors and officers of Bermuda-based companies.The appeal by Focus Insurance Company liquidators could affect every corporation registered here and may ultimately produce a landmark decision in the development of Bermuda's company law.However, the Privy Council application relies on liquidators David Lines and Peter Mitchell first obtaining leave to appeal a Court of Appeal judgment handed down November 25.